Today, the BCCLA wrote to the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety about a recent government leak of purported intelligence information implicating two Canadians in a terrorist plot. The contents of the leak, the timing of it, and the government’s public statements in response to the whole affair all raise serious concerns, including whether the Canadian public can truly be informed via selective leaking of cherry-picked information.
In August, La Presse, a Montreal newspaper, published an article describing an alleged conspiracy between Adil Charkaoui and Abousfian Abdelrazik to place an explosive device on an aircraft. The alleged conspiracy was outlined in a document leaked to La Presse, which purported to be a 2004 report from CSIS summarizing conversation reportedly intercepted in 2000.
Messrs Charkaoui and Abdelrazik should be familiar to readers of these pages. Mr. Charkaoui spent six years living under a security certificate, during which time he was subjected to detention, house arrest, and constant surveillance. The security certificate against him eventually collapsed because the government refused to provide either him or the court with sufficient evidence to justify the certificate. Mr. Abdelrazik is a Canadian citizen who was arrested in Sudan at the request of the Canadian government, and whose efforts at returning home to Canada were repeatedly stymied by the government until a Federal Court declared that Canada was violating Mr. Abdelrazik’s constitutional rights. Neither man has ever been charged with any terrorism-related offences.
The allegations in the La Presse article were quickly seized upon and reported by the national media. And in response to these reports, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney stated:
I read the protected confidential dossiers on such individuals, and I can tell you that, without commenting on any one individual, some of this intelligence makes the hair stand up on the back of your neck. I just think people should be patient and thoughtful and give the government and its agencies the benefit of the doubt.
Thus, having failed (for years) to make out a case against either Mr. Charkaoui or Mr. Abdelrazik in the courts, government is now seizing on the selective leaking of decade-old intelligence information to make its case against these men in the media.
Our letter goes into considerable detail about our various and serious concerns, which we won’t repeat here, but we do make one point that bears re-emphasizing: Leaks of this sort — decontextualized and selective — do little by way of providing a complete and truthful account of events. Instead, selective disclosure only leads to concerns that the story is actually being manipulated.
Read the entirety of our letter here. We also commend you to some very thoughtful commentary on this leak. Professor Reg Whitaker provides an informative account of previous similar leaks in his analysis. Professor Craig Forcese thinks that this leak raises some interesting questions that the government should be asking.
Whispers and innuendo
Today, the BCCLA wrote to the Minister of Justice and the Minister of Public Safety about a recent government leak of purported intelligence information implicating two Canadians in a terrorist plot. The contents of the leak, the timing of it, and the government’s public statements in response to the whole affair all raise serious concerns, including whether the Canadian public can truly be informed via selective leaking of cherry-picked information.
In August, La Presse, a Montreal newspaper, published an article describing an alleged conspiracy between Adil Charkaoui and Abousfian Abdelrazik to place an explosive device on an aircraft. The alleged conspiracy was outlined in a document leaked to La Presse, which purported to be a 2004 report from CSIS summarizing conversation reportedly intercepted in 2000.
Messrs Charkaoui and Abdelrazik should be familiar to readers of these pages. Mr. Charkaoui spent six years living under a security certificate, during which time he was subjected to detention, house arrest, and constant surveillance. The security certificate against him eventually collapsed because the government refused to provide either him or the court with sufficient evidence to justify the certificate. Mr. Abdelrazik is a Canadian citizen who was arrested in Sudan at the request of the Canadian government, and whose efforts at returning home to Canada were repeatedly stymied by the government until a Federal Court declared that Canada was violating Mr. Abdelrazik’s constitutional rights. Neither man has ever been charged with any terrorism-related offences.
The allegations in the La Presse article were quickly seized upon and reported by the national media. And in response to these reports, Immigration Minister Jason Kenney stated:
Thus, having failed (for years) to make out a case against either Mr. Charkaoui or Mr. Abdelrazik in the courts, government is now seizing on the selective leaking of decade-old intelligence information to make its case against these men in the media.
Our letter goes into considerable detail about our various and serious concerns, which we won’t repeat here, but we do make one point that bears re-emphasizing: Leaks of this sort — decontextualized and selective — do little by way of providing a complete and truthful account of events. Instead, selective disclosure only leads to concerns that the story is actually being manipulated.
Read the entirety of our letter here. We also commend you to some very thoughtful commentary on this leak. Professor Reg Whitaker provides an informative account of previous similar leaks in his analysis. Professor Craig Forcese thinks that this leak raises some interesting questions that the government should be asking.
CIVIL LIBERTIES CAN’T PROTECT THEMSELVES